YouTube launches new audience engagement analytics tool

YouTube has introduced a number of new tools to their analytics suite, including the ability to see how long viewers spend watching video content.

While it's important to know how many viewers an online video has, it's just as important to know whether viewers are hanging around to watch, and for how long they're engaged.

In a blog post about their new audience engagement analytics tool, YouTube project manager, Ted Hamilton, writes, "Earlier this year we started focusing on the time users spend watching YouTube when we suggest videos. To give you additional insight into engagement for your videos, we've enhanced the "Views" report to show more time watched data. You can see "Estimated minutes watched" from the "Views" report or choose other data options from the "Compare metric" drop-down menu."

In addition, content creators that use annotations in online video will now be able to see how often viewers click on, or close, those annotations.

"If viewers are watching more YouTube, it signals to us that they're happier with the content they've found," says Eric Meyerson, head of creator marketing communications at YouTube. "It means that creators are attracting more engaged audiences. It also opens up more opportunities to generate revenue for our partners."